Sykes said she barely made it into the studio after flying in the night before from France, where she missed her original flight after falling asleep on the train and missing her stop on the way to the airport.

“I was drinking the night before, if you really want to know,” she said, when asked why she had missed her stop.

Sykes recently made headlines for criticizing the way Paula Deen has handled the racism scandal that brought down her celebrity cooking empire. Sykes certainly didn’t hold back when Hoda asked her about Deen on Thursday.

“She said she’s only said the N-word once, but now that she’s lost her whole empire, I’m pretty sure she’s saying it a lot more,” Sykes cracked, although she later added, “I feel bad for her, I do.”

During an appearance last month on “The Tonight Show,” Sykes told host Jay Leno that Deen needed to stop her various public apology attempts.

“She should’ve had a friend to just tell her, ‘you need to just shut the hell up right now.’ Just sit down and shut up. She’s out here blabbing on the TV,” she said. “I thought on the TODAY show she should’ve ran out and just tongue kissed Al Roker … gave him a lap dance and said, ‘I got no problems with y’all!’”